As we delve into the second half of our Top 20 players of 2015 we have Jesper "JW" Wecksell in 10th place, whose ability to open up rounds and efficiency while doing so had a big impact on fnatic's success.

JW's career spans across about four years, as he only started showing himself on the international stage in mid-2012, towards the end of Counter-Strike 1.6's life.

After switching to CS:GO he would go on to prove himself in Epsilon at DreamHack Summer, before the team moved to fnatic in the second half of 2013 and won the first major, DreamHack Winter 2013.

Since then he stayed in the organization, albeit with only one of his teammates from back then, Robin "flusha" Rönnquist, and became a part of what is now widely considered the most successful CS:GO lineup of all time.

He is no stranger to our Top 20 Rankings, as he has earned his place in the top 10 twice: he placed 8th in 2013, and then 5th in 2014.

The start of 2015 was somewhat unsatisfying for fnatic, who were one of the main favourites at MLG X Games Aspen, and by extension to JW. The AWPer only had positive ratings on two maps out of eight, both of which were against North American competition in one-sided matches. His 1.00 rating in Aspen, Colorado was still good enough for second place within fnatic as his teammates also didn't shine in what ended up being a fourth place campaign.

Inferno Online Pantamera Challenge followed, where fnatic took their first victory in 2015, and the story was very different for JW as well. Despite fnatic's matches always going to double digits, with the exception of one map out of 10, the AWPer dropped below 0.85 only once. On six maps he was on the positive side, and he was fnatic's best player in the grand final against Titan with a 1.20 rating. He was also the only one to have survived Kenny "kennyS" Schrub's frenzy in that match, as the Swede had a 15-13 record in duels against the French superstar over the whole grand final.

A similar story to MLG X Games occured in Katowice, the first major of 2015, as he once again only had two maps in the green, against Vox Eminor, and on the first map against PENTA in the quarter-final. Despite fnatic winning the event, his rating in Katowice was his worst in the first half of 2015 (0.99), although he did help the team's campaign as one of the best at getting the opening kills at the event (0.15 per round).

At Gfinity Spring Masters 1, where JW temporarily rejoined his former fnatic teammate Andreas "znajder" Lindberg in Property, he was the team's best player in two out of three series there. Only against NiP did his friend and ex-teammate surpass him, and JW went home with another individually successful event behind him.

JW's record in the first half of 2015 was beyond impressive

After his stand-in stint in Property, he and fnatic went on to finish in second place at ESEA Invite Season 18 Global Finals. Apart from having a somewhat poor record against Titan in the four maps they played, JW had a solid performance across the pond. He was the team's second best overall (1.11 rating), and he carried fnatic on the one map they grabbed from Virtus.pro in the grand final. He also recorded second most opening kills per round (0.16), as well as fourth most AWP kills per round (0.25). His all-in-one performance against CLG is also worth mentioning, as he was the team's best in all five categories featured in our Top players box (Most kills, assists, AWP kills, first kills, and best rating).

CCS Kick-off Season Finals was another good event for the Swede overall. He started off with a superb showing in the opener against TSM, which fnatic lost 12-16 and 13-16, the team's best by far (1.26 rating). The numbers in the one-sided win against NiP in the consolidation final were also very good from him, but he had a couple of poor performances in close encounters of two different series, de_inferno against EnVyUs and de_mirage against TSM in the grand final.

fnatic went on to lose another series to TSM at FACEIT Stage 1 Finals, this time in the semi-finals. JW recorded his arguably best performance on a very close map there, on de_mirage against the Danes, which fnatic ended up losing.

fnatic went back to winning ways at the next two events, the first of which being DreamHack Open Tours. JW proved to be highly valuable to fnatic in France, as he only found himself below a 0.85 rating once (0.84 in an overtime loss to HR). More importantly, though, he stood his ground in the grand final versus EnVyUs, especially in the 7-16 loss on map one, de_dust2. He was fnatic's second-best player in the grand final (1.21 rating) overall.

JW had a big say in fnatic's gold medal at Gfinity Spring Masters 2 as well. fnatic tied three best-of-twos in the group stage, one with each of NiP, Renegades, and Liquid, but still managed to advance. The sniper was a solid player in all three of them, especially against NiP, and he stepped it up in time for playoffs. He ended up being the best fragger of the event, had the most opening kills in total (70), as well as per round (0.18). And to top it off, he was a solid clutcher for fnatic with seven 1-on-X situations won.

JW finished off his long streak of good performances at Fragbite Masters Season 4 Finals. He earned a second place within fnatic with a 1.14 rating on home turf. He was fnatic's second best player on the seven maps they have played at the event against TSM. On three of the seven maps he recorded a rating of above 1.30, most notably on the decider of the first series, de_inferno, where he topped the scoreboard with 27-12 (1.76 rating).

DreamHack Open Summer was where he first started showing signs of underperformance. It was his first bad event in 2015 after a very impressive first half of the year, as he dropped significantly below 1.00 as the only one in fnatic (0.93), who went on to add another trophy to their already full list of achievements.

At DreamHack Open Summer JW showed first signs of bad form

He went back to being a stable player for fnatic in the next couple of months, although he was nowhere near his level from the first six months. ESL ESEA Pro League S1 Finals turned out to be his best event in the second half of 2015 (2nd best fragger in fnatic in another title run, 1.07 rating), as he dropped to a 1.00-1.05 rating at the three events afterwards.

Those included FACEIT Stage 2 Finals and a couple of $250,000 events, ESL One Cologne and ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational. In Valencia it was his measly 5-23 (0.25 rating) score in the group stage against TSM that dragged him down, because he went back to being fnatic's second-best player at the remainder of the event.

The major was somewhat unsatisfying from him, mostly because of another non-factor performance in a close encounter—17-31 (0.52 rating) in the grand final's overtime battle versus EnVyUs on de_dust2—, in the other matches he was quite stable.

After ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational, another solid event from the Swede despite a 3rd-4th finish, things turned grey. After JW fell to a 0.94 rating at Gfinity Champion of Champions—where he once again didn't show up to a couple of close maps—, he dropped even further to 0.89 at PGL Season 1 Finals, and even worse to 0.77 at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca. The last major was by far the biggest blow to his 2015 performance, as he didn't play a single map above a 1.00 rating, and it was one of the two events where he was the team's worst player rating-wise, which certainly didn't help them as their dreams of a triple major triumph ended in the quarter-final.

JW started shying away from the AWP after the major

When fnatic swapped in-game leader Markus "pronax" Wallsten for Dennis "dennis" Edman, JW somewhat recovered from the bad couple of months and returned to his post-EEPL S1 Finals form. In the three victories fnatic snatched at the end of the year, he started picking up rifles much more, and stayed around the 1.00 rating mark. It's worth mentioning that he was the team's second best player behind Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer in fnatic's grand final versus NiP at Fragbite Masters Season 5 Finals.

Why is he the 10th best player of 2015?

Despite his significant drop in performance after Fragbite Masters Season 4 Finals, especially in the last three months, JW boasts some largely impressive statistics.

What had a big impact on his placing is his superb ability to open up rounds, and the impact of his opening kills on round wins. He ranks first in opening kills in total with 736, which is a 110 more than the second highest, and fourth in opening kills per round with 0.15.

With a 54.7% success rate in opening duels and a ratio of 1.35 between rounds won after his opening kills and rounds lost after his opening deaths, JW's aggression was certainly justified, as he was one of the most efficient players in that regard in 2015.

While JW didn't pick up the AWP as much as other dedicated snipers—he placed 14th in AWP kills per round with 0.24—, his AWP kills had one of the biggest impacts. When he got at least one kill with the big green gun, his team won the round in 73.6% cases (3rd highest).

His rating in big matches is about average (1.01), but in the 99 maps of big matches fnatic played he was the team's second biggest contributor in round wins.

It's important to note that he was able to garner the aforementioned stats despite playing the biggest amount of maps against the other top six teams, 117, which makes for 62% of his maps in total; much harder competition in comparison to the average player even in the top 20.

He couldn't be placed higher mostly due to a couple of things. First of all, after being the team's second or third-best player at nearly every event in the first half of the year, he dropped to fourth place within fnatic due to the lower impact he had in the second half of 2015.

Secondly, JW's record at majors is one of the worst out of all players in the ranking (0.93 rating), even though he did well in the other four $250,000 events.

What are your thoughts on JW's level of play in 2015? Did he deserve the 10th place in the ranking? Let us know what your thoughts are by commenting below.

Stay tuned to our Top 20 players of 2015 ranking powered by EGB.com and keep track of the list over at the Introduction article.

Stop being so salty and reply nt to every comment i know that u r soooooo upset that Allu has a lower ranking than JW but being this salty kid wont help at all since allu is worse than JW(at least in this year)
Most likely becuz Allu has a big impact on the success of nip this year(which isnt very successful)
And JW has a big impact on the success of fnatic this year(which is one of the best this year)(if not the most successful)
So stop ur salt everyone deserves their rankings THIS WHOLE YEAR(so far)

yes he did so much better, look at what he achieved with fnatic & stfu, it was due to his contribution within his team, he doesn't sit & do nothing like RpK/Ex6 with Titan for example.. fer > all right ?

see thats ur problem. u think low impact players in top teams deserve to be higher on the list then star players of weaker teams. a crucial mistake. its a player rating, not a team rating. and even though jw played in big games at big lans all the time, he hardly had much impact. in fact for large parts of the year he was a weak link.

dude u cant be serious. he has a major rating of 0,93!
they won 2 fucking majors alone this year. the third one didnt go too great (still alrightyish compared to other teams), but if he was a high impact player especially at majors, he would have easily a 1.1 rating at those.

yes you need to add exactly what i just said... i think cold is a top 7 talent in the world but you can't possibly have him in the top 20 this year... i don't agree with jw at #10, i had him more 11-15

individual and title ranking for 2015, something cold didn't show enough of despite being a machine the times he did, i agree he's a better player but he accomplished very little in a short period of time as well

i saw his stream, and he is only DMG rank. you know ranks are broken when the 10th best player in the world, one of the most accomplished csgo players in the world is only DMG rank. he clearly should be a true global elite but valve is a bunch of future darwin award winners.

So I'm the one with no knowledge about CS rankings and not the who thinks JW should have been top 5 this year? I didn't think someone could be that retarded. H even said it himself that he played terrible you stupid fuck, you don't put him in the top10 only because his team won 2 majors

chrisJ and s1mple is on almost every rank list, most efective player at opening rounds on t side, top fraggers 2015 by kpr, most agresive players ct and t side and more. Those both players are above of the godlike level, sick.

HAHAHHAAHHAHAA this is pathetic sucked all year and got 10 place , hes one of the reasons the needed to change pronax to dennis. He shouldnt even be in the top 20 but hes even placed at the 10 spot :DDD

Haha how upset people are with JW being 10th. Of course he would be higher than other better players since all official rankings in the world take into consideration the team achievements. Same as Ronaldo had more goals than Messi but of course Messi won the golden ball since his goals helped his team win the title and the champions league.
It will be the same situation with KennyS and Guardian, even if Guardian is a better player, kenny will be placed higher because of the major win + 1 other major final + a few months at the start of the year when he was a monster.

I hardly paid any attention for the latter half of the year so this is a serious question for those who did: doesn't seized deserved to be on the list? At this point it is of course obvious that he won't.

What??
JW was on the best team, of course he deserves credit, but in my opinion he was no "major" part in the success fnatic had. I think they could have had the same success with another awper as well.

And yes jw better than dupreeh :P this list just full of bullshit dupreeh def should be top7-8 and gtr kennys jw 2high also shoxie shouldnt be on this list bla bla bla just ignore this shit all they care players name and fans i wouldnt suprise if they pick kenny over GuardiaN

And most sadly part is flamie and seized tehy both played amazing this year flamie should be top10 and seized kinda like 15-16 etc but hey they dont have 12 yo fanboys so ggwp

Where did I say that, you liar? Na'Vi was very succesful this year so why Guardian shouldn't be in top 10? fnatic, nV, TSM, VP, Na'Vi. These teams were the best in this year and players from these teams will be in top 10.

JW>dupreeh? ROFL. I could tolerate the ranks until this one, holy fuck hltv you're retarded. Second half of 2015 JW lost all his form and was getting carried 70% of the time, and you call him a top 10 player and rate him higher than dupreeh, flamie, hell even GTR deserved his spot more than JW

I don't like it, but HLTV somehow, put a lot of importance on what players won, instead of how players performed individualy trough the year, so fnatic players are highly favored and boosted over any comparison between players of other teams.

He was never a good awper he's admitted that himself, this is back when the CZ75 was over powered af and his main weapon of choice to shit on people. That doesn't change the fact you shouldn't talk shit and not expect me to make you look like a fool that doesn't know shit about JW. 2014 JW = Godlike under rated beast should of been top 3, JW 2015= mediocre. Watch his reflections video with Thorin he literally says that he thought his performance in 2015 was mediocre and here he is ranked 10th in the world by this ranking. If you have any free time watch the interview alot of this shit he says out of his own mouth, wasn't effect by awp nerf, he said he fell off when the CZ75 got nerfed.

Not really. As much as I adore Skadoodle and co, a summer doesn't justify an entire year. 2 majors and couple of large events (>$200k) are the reason why he is fairly high up in the ranking compared to Skadoodle.

Happy is the most overrated player ever. Always is affraid to take aim duels cause of his shit aim and he knows that. Can kill from behind only. However once he knows enemy team is on eco - he's running in like a fckn terminator just to get those free frags before his teammates do, just ugly. Skillwise he is the worst player from tier 1 team. But yeah, it is all about stats/ratings so he will be on that top 20 list. Ugly player with no impact to the match.